Haollenphai, Modernization & Smart city
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 09 , 2014 -
The Government of Manipur is all set to acquire 3000 acres of land at Haollenphai village near the border township of Moreh. The Government is targeting the particular area with a vision to set up a modern town with all the modern facilities and amenities.
This is understandable in view of the Government of India’s Look East Policy and the State Government’s pet project of developing Moreh as the gateway to South and South East Asia.
However, so far the State Government has not spelled out whether it plans to expand Moreh town or develop an altogether, separate town.
Haollenphai is one among the 100 lucky places selected from across India for setting up ‘Smart’ cities. This is another testimony of the geo-strategic importance of the location of Manipur in terms of international trade and defence from the perspective of New Delhi mandarins.
In fact, it is none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is pushing hard for Smart cities. Even in his election speeches he had hinted at how this project has occupied his mind.
With Singapore offering to build smart cities in India, Narendra Modi Government has expressed its keenness and it has already selected 100 places for development of Smart cities across the country including Haollenphai.
According to IBM, which is working on 2,500 smart city projects globally, a smart city uses technology to transform its core systems.
A smart city’s core infrastructure is information technology, where a network of sensors, cameras, wireless devices, data centres form the key infrastructure providing essential services.
Being environmentally friendly, smart cities use sustainable materials for building facilities and reduce energy consumption. This is a brief introduction of what a Smart city is.
Development of a Smart city in the vicinity of Moreh would be a big boost to the cross-border trade and it would for sure benefit the people of Moreh and surrounding areas.
With a proper maintenance policy, Haollenphai may one day become one of the prized assets of the State of Manipur.
Modernization often entails destruction and Haollenphai would be no exception. Land acquisition, in one sense, is destruction. People would be evicted, trees and plants would be uprooted and existing structures would be dismantled to make space for new structures and facilities.
For any modernization project, the trickiest part is land acquisition. This is even more so in the hill areas of Manipur where the land holding pattern and land ownership are placed beyond the ambit of conventional land ownership laws.
Whereas reports say that the State Government has chalked out certain norms and conditions for land acquisition with the land owners, the Kuki Students’ Organisation and some other civil organisations have raised strong objections against the Government’s initiative for land acquisition.
What the KSO said was, “Development which condescends upon our traditions and customs is meaningless development for us”. This statement evinces a very interesting question.
Can modernization and traditional systems go together or complement each other?
Yes, traditional systems are ingrained in our psyche whereas in most cases, modernization involves inculcation of new thought processes, maximum of which were/are conceptualised by the West.
The pertinent question here is, should we hang on to our traditional systems and forgo the rare opportunity of developing an ultra modern Smart city.
We need to weigh the pros and cons very carefully with a vision for the future.
If the Government must acquire the particular area, it should not overlook the compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement parts as codified in the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013.
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